Black Friday on a red budget
Four months ago there was no doubt about it: we were going to buy our two boys a Wii for Christmas. Back then, before the houses started foreclosing in our neighborhood and layoffs began randomly taking out our colleagues, $250 for a big family Christmas present didn’t seem like that big deal.
But now? Nope. Not. Gonna. Do. It. In fact, now that I’ve decided to pull the plug on the Wii, I’m feeling pretty relieved, and might I say, a little smug. Why did I ever want to bring that thing into my house in the first place?
How about you? Given it’s Black Friday but most of our savings accounts are in the red, are you planning to stay away from the mall or superstore today? Are you cutting back on your gift list this year? Are there gifts out there that give a big bang for a little buck?
What’s your strategy for getting through a holiday season that has so many pressures to spend, but as the Grinch discovered, “It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
Nancy Cambria is the Children and Families reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She writes on a wide variety of topics pertaining to the well-being of children and family issues. She posts on children and family policy in The Grade blog and on general family and parenting issues in the Parents Talk Back blog located in the lifestyle section. 
Yes we have cut back, but not on a family gift. We choice to spend our money something we as a family could use to bring us together. We ditched expensive dish/cable months ago, best thing we have done! We have always played the Wii as a family. We are adding Guitar Hero World Tour to add to our family fun. Any activity do as a family we consider it a good purchase. We have purchased more board games, movies, and books that will be shared. Ditching individual items like mp3 players. They do have needed clothing items coming. We would rather have one big item than a bunch of stuff that will be sat to the side and forgotten in a month. Being on a tight budget has brought us together by making us interact more, that has been the best thing about the dip in the economy.